In Shadows
by MidnightCat99
Summary: In shadows he waits, in shadows he haunts. She could fight him, could run from him and pursue her dreams. But suddenly the nightmares are so much more appealing… It's the shadows that draw her away from the light and into his darkness. J/S.


**Title:** In Shadows

**Author:** MidnightCat99

**Summary:** In shadows he waits, in shadows he haunts. She could fight him, could run from him and pursue her dreams, but suddenly the nightmares are so much more appealing… It's the shadows that draw her away from the light and into his darkness. J/S.

**Rating:** K+

**Author's Note:** I wrote (most of) this a couple of months ago. It was going to be an entry in "Broken Record", but then I decided I hated it and would never post it. But…_then_ I was looking through my old fanfics while procrastinating on an essay. So I reread this, realized I didn't hate it as much as I'd thought I did (though that could just be the sleep deprivation talking), and decided to finally post it as the first in a series of one-shots I've been thinking about publishing for a while. The entries in this series will be longer (and probably less…vague and vignette-ish) than those in "Broken Record", and some _might_ even be related. I don't know how frequently I'll update it, though. Okay, I'll shut up now. I really need to get some sleep…

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Labyrinth_. Duh. :P

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><p><em><strong>T<strong>_he first time Sarah glimpsed it, she wrote it off as a mere trick of the light. It flashed before her eyes in an instant, there one second, gone the next.

Her response the second time was scarcely different. She blinked at the dark shape, then proceeded to disregard it. Okay, so maybe it wasn't a trick of the light. Still, it wasn't worthy of anything beyond passing interest or notice; it was only a shadow.

A particularly tall, Goblin King shaped shadow, but nothing more.

She started slightly at its fifth appearance. Sinking her teeth into her lip, she averted her eyes from the inky figure and affected insouciance.

Its dozenth visit instigated the beginnings of mild irritation on her part. _Mild _irritation. It didn't bother her. That much. It didn't.

The shadow's twenty-first appearance happened to fall on Sarah's twenty-first birthday. The coincidence might have shocked, even unnerved her…if she had let it. Which she didn't. It wasn't like this thing was actually a living _being_, in possession of real, human thought. She didn't have a stalker. She didn't. (And even if she did, its identity was _of course _not that of a certain Fae she'd met once upon a time…) It was just her overworked mind playing tricks on her. One too many nights characterized by a combination of term papers, bad coffee, and approximately 2.5 hours of slumber. Nothing more.

She learned to refrain from indulging in coffee, and began a ritual of starting her term papers _before _the eve of their due dates. However, no lack of caffeine-loaded beverages and sleepless nights prevented the black, Fae shaped figure from appearing before her for the twenty-eighth time. And twenty-ninth. And thirtieth.

Maybe "mild" was no longer the best way to describe her annoyance.

After deducing that coffee definitely had no effect on her shadowy stalker, Sarah resumed her indulgence of the drink, quadrupling her daily coffee intake of it this time. Thus began her habit of shivering uncontrollably, as if in the clutches of a snowman. Or serial killer. Either description worked. Therefore, her three-foot leap backward springing from the shadow's thirty-sixth appearance really wasn't as impressive as it might have been were she not already jittery twenty-four seven.

It's safe to say that her vexation at her undesired visitor was quickly growing into downright terror. _Acute _fear.

While her first oral reaction at the shadow's appearance barely qualified as a scream, her twenty-fifth one begged the creation of a new classification of screaming. Half the people milling about the street around her glanced concernedly her way as if planning to offer help; the other half hastily put as much distance between the seemingly insane young woman and themselves as possible.

When Sarah wasn't busy flinching and shrieking and recoiling at any and every shadow, she reflected on how laughable the whole scenario was. _Stalked by a shadow. Ha! No one would believe me. Not that I'd ever tell anyone. That would just earn me a one-way ticket to a mental institution. No, definitely not happening._

So she would not tell anyone. She would suffer in silence, as she'd so often done before.

The fortieth appearance came and went.

The fiftieth.

_I'm fine. Just suffer in silence._

Seventieth.

_Still fine. I can stand this. No problem. Suffer in silence. Suffer in _silence_._

Eightieth.

_In _silence_…_

Hundredth.

_Screw silence._

"Okay, _okay_!" she all but shrieked, spinning around to confront the shadow before it could disperse into nothingness as it always did when she faced it directly. Her eyes fixed on the towering sable form, daring it to disappear. Fury coursed through her like wildfire, twisted her face into an almost unrecognizable expression of pure venom. The anger was genuine, she told herself, not just a mask to hide the fear slithering down her spine.

"Enough already! I _get _it, all right? You're upset because I defeated your stupid maze and so now you're bent on getting revenge. And you've got it, okay? Your creepy stalking has totally freaked me out these past years. So you can stop now!Mission accomplished. Leave me _alone_."

"Oh, I'm not 'bent on revenge,' as you so coherently put it," Jareth's low, accented voice cut through the silence. A shiver raced up her spine at the almost disembodied utterance.

"Then what _are _you bent on?" The fury was dissolving, allowing the fear to creep into her voice. She hated herself for that fear, for her weakness.

And what had been dark became light. What had moments before been a decidedly peculiar shadow was now man. Well, man-_ish_…

She felt rather than saw the dark hand come to rest on the side of her face. At the sudden contact, a shudder racked her body. She attempted to stumble away from that cold appendage and its owner, but then another black-clad hand came down hard on her shoulder, fixing her in place. Fingers, icy even through their gloves, forced her chin up; mismatched eyes met her wide green ones. Fire and ice burned within those eyes, clashing with each other at every turn but somehow managing to coincide. And suddenly she knew the answer to her own question. He smiled at the comprehension dawning in her face; his pallid lips parted and his tongue snaked out to voice an entirely unnecessary reply.

"Procuring a queen." Determination and inexorability dripped from his words. As always.

Just how she found her voice then she would never understand, but she found it nonetheless. "You'll…never leave me alone, will you?" she asked weakly, realization crashing down on her with the force of a hundred waves––the climax of a realization that had been slowly building since the first time a dark shadow danced at the edge of her vision.

Breathless, she watched a last glimmer of hope take form in her mind's eye, then wink into nothingness with his reply.

She felt his icy breath on her neck as he leaned forward. Too close. _Much _too close. "_Never_."

She could have fought then. Spooked and terrified and hopeless as she was, she could have put up a fight. She _knew_ she could have.

But all at once any desire to flee, well, _fled_. There he was, the epitome of dark dreams she would never admit to having dreamed, of nightmares she could never quite bring herself to truly fear.

The glimpses she saw of him in the shadows had terrified her; the memories of him she was never able to erase had haunted her, tormented her.

She'd hated that fear, hated him for causing it.

But really _seeing_ him in all his darkness and cruel beauty after _so long_…

The fear was still there, but it was different now. Changed. It didn't evoke her hatred; instead, it excited her, thrilled her, drew her to him like the mesmerizing nightmare he'd always been.

Her nightmares had never been so alluring, so frighteningly beautiful.

He took her then, somehow, in a way she could never quite recall or describe afterwards. Maybe it had been as sudden and seamless as the first time he brought her to the Underground all those years ago; maybe it had been as rough and terrifying as her midnight dreams so often tried to convince her that first transportation had actually been.

It didn't matter anyway. One minute she was on her own street back home, stunned by the terrifying beauty she'd never really understood, or perhaps never even _seen_,before. The next…she wasn't.

In shadows Jareth had waited, in shadows he had haunted. Sarah could have fought him, could have run from him and pursued dreams that lay in light rather than dark. But in the end it had been him, her nightmares and darkest dreams, that had pulled her in, had won the battle for her being and life.

It was the shadows that had drawn her away from the light and into his darkness.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Too melodramatic? Too wordy? Too…anything? Is the last page or so too…idk, sudden and illogical? If the style seemed to change around that bit, it's because I deleted the original ending (which probably made more sense than the current one does) and wrote a new one a few minutes ago, while (most of) the rest of the fic was written months ago.

By the way, I haven't given up on "The Owl King" (in case you were wondering). Right now I just kind of…hate…that story and what I've written of it thus far…But I'll try to update it by summer.


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